Trying to install Microsoft's BDC tool today. As a lot of MOSS development goes on within a VM development environment.. that's where it's got to go. And it's not playing. Found a dialog I don't remember seeing before:

The progress bar just wraps around and starts again when it gets to the end :)

An aside here: What does 'The installation is taking longer than expected' mean? How am I to interpret that? Shouldn't it just say: "it's taking too long, somethings up, I think I should give up the installation now, rather than annoy you for another hour or two while you watch the progress bar yo-yo about."

Although the VM can sometimes run a little slow the host PC normally copes ok. This install just makes the processor max out and doesn't look like it's ever going to finish. And I'm not normally one for killing an install process - it could leave things in a real mess!

The tool needs SQL Express installed - which appears to be getting stuck during installation. It's a little strange that SQL Express is forced upon you - I mean this VM has a full SQL instance on it already. Shouldn't any database dependencies of the tool be handled with a database script targetted at whatever database server you choose? As this tool is for helping out with BDC application definitions, presumably the only people interested in running this tool are doing MOSS development of some kind - so they'll all already have SQL server running somewhere!

Didn't mean this to turn into a rant.. But these tools are supposed to enhance productivity? I think I'll just work with the XML - it'll be quicker! MOSS installed, Visual Studio managed too.. why not a simple glorified XML editor tool?

Firing it up again now after a full reboot of the VM. The processor is maxed out already. Now what..?

I'll leave it over lunch and see what happens. Perhaps I'll give up and install it on my host machine.

Update: after lunch it's installed at last.. so If you're having a similar problem: reboot your VM and be patient!